This invention relates to a tool for use with a claw hammer in the removal of nails from a surface.
The conventional claw hammer is of course very well known and comprises a shank and a generally T-shaped hammer head having a shank engaging portion defined by a leg of the T-shape, a striker body on one side of the T-shape having an end striker face generally at right angles to a striker axis which is at right angles to the shank. On the other side of the T-shape is provided a claw body including a pair of claw fingers projecting away from the shank and defining a slot therebetween for receiving and grasping a nail head. The claw hammer is convenient for pulling nails in that the claw fingers engaged on either side of the nail and then the shank of hammer is pulled in a plane at right angles to the surface are the so that the upper surface of the hammer heads acts as a fulcrum to pull the nail out of the surface into which it is engaged. One problem which arises with the pulling of nails in this way is that where the nail is relatively long for example in framing nails, the fulcrum is insufficiently spaced from the surface in which the nail is embedded so that when the head of the nail is beyond about half inch to one inch from the surface the nail begins to bend as the pull from the claw is in the wrong direction. This makes pulling the nail extremely inconvenient and requires significantly more force since the force is not in the required direction. In addition this causes bending of the nails as they are pulled so that they are then unsuitable for further use.
Some users overcome this problem by providing a block of wood which is placed on top of the surface within which the nail is embedded so that the fulcrum surface of the hammer engages against a block of wood thus restoring the force on the nail to approximately the right direction. However the block of wood is somewhat inconvenient in that it must be carefully held and in that it must be carried around and thus made available at the required time.
At the present time no tool is commercially available for replacing this simple block of wood.
One proposal for a tool suitable for this purpose was made in U.S. Pat. No. 551,993 from December 1895 by Norton et al. In this arrangement a curved body is attached to the head of the hammer by engagement with the claw portion on one side, the striker body on the opposed side and with a loop which wraps over and screw-fastens to the shank engaging portion. This device is therefore highly inconvenient to attach and has found little or no favor in the trade so that it certainly is not commercially available at the present time.
A search carried out in relation to the present invention has also revealed U.S. Pat. No. 110,176 from December 1870 by Ward and U.S. Pat. No. 830,072 from September 1906 by Houlihan. Both of these devices are nail extractors which can engage a nail head and can be grasped by the claw section of a claw hammer to assist in pulling the nail.